The present subject matter relates generally to a computer system that enables people to create content, and to search for content they create and content created by other people who use the system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a computer system—a social review system—that (1) enables people to form relationships with other people who use the system; (2) enables people to create content about a variety of goods, services, activities, and events-ratings and reviews of goods, services, activities and events, lists of goods, services, activities and events, and other similar content; (3) provides functionality to generate new data about the content created based on social relationships people who use the system establish; (4) provides tools and functionality for people to search for content they create and content created by other people who use the system, and to leverage social relationships of varying social distances people have established in the system when searching-through the use of filters and other processes; (5) provides tools and functionality for people to manipulate content created in an effort to create new content.
There is an issue of trust on review sites on the Internet today. People can't always trust the reviews and ratings they read. People don't know who the reviewers are. People don't know if the review is real or fake. People don't know the bias or motivation behind the review.
There is an issue of data overload on review sites on the Internet today. With so much information out on the Internet, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to process all of this data. People are overwhelmed.
There is an issue of being able to know what activities one's friends have done using websites on the Internet today. Websites don't provide the functionality and processes for a person to easily figure out their friends' activities: where their friends have been, what they've seen, what they've done. For instance, to which restaurants have a person's friends gone? To which do they want to go? To which movies have a person's friends seen? To which to they want to see? To where have a person's friends traveled? What did they do?
Similarly, there is an issue of being able to know what opinions one's friends have about things, such as activities they have done, services they have received, goods they have purchased, and events they have attended using sites on the Internet today. People want to know their friends' opinions about things. For a given restaurant, movie, music album, etc., what did their friends think? How did they review it? What was the overall opinion about a restaurant, movie, music album, etc. by all of a person's friends?
Continuing, there is an issue of being able to compare one's reviews of things with the reviews of one of their friends on review sites on the Internet today. People are unable to compare their reviews with the reviews of a friend. For instance, what music albums has a person reviewed, what music albums has their friend reviewed, and what is unique to the person, unique to the friend, and common to both? Further, this comparison cannot be performed for all of a person's friends in aggregate, either.
There is an issue of disparate review sites for different activities, products, and services on the Internet today. There isn't a central place to find reviews about activities, products, and services, specifically “lifestyle” activities, services, and products: restaurants, movies, music, travel, smartphone apps, books, etc. Today, people have to use multiple sites to review and find reviews about lifestyle activities.
There is an issue with the information captured about reviews on review sites on the Internet today. The composition of most reviews on the Internet fall into one of the following categories: (1) A recommendation [yes/no], and comments (optional); (2) A rating (some score on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10), and comments (optional); (3) Comments only. Additionally, many review sites offer a rating scale that is 1-5 where “3” is “OK”. This is limiting. That leaves 2 ratings for “better than OK”, which makes differentiating things that are “better than OK” difficult.
There is an issue of being able to search for lists of things on the Internet today. Lists on the Internet today have very little data associated with them to differentiate one from another, and that makes searching for relevant lists challenging. Lists today have a name—“My favorite Chicago restaurants”, or “My favorite Beatles albums”—and may be made for a particular category—restaurants, movies, music, etc. Searching through lists is challenging because one can only filter on the name of the list, and possibly the category of the list, if that exists.
There is an issue with travel reviews on review sites on the Internet today. Current travel reviews on the Internet are limited by the domain of categories and domain of places and activities a person may review. That is, sites on the Internet offer a limited number of categories for travel reviews, such as hotels, restaurants, points-of-interest, and the domain of entities within each category is also limited. Further, those reviews are discrete. The reviews exist as standalone reviews. Reviews today are not brought together or related in a way to know what a person did on their trip to a destination.
There is an issue of disparate event sites showing calendars of events on the Internet today. There isn't a central place to know what events are occurring in a particular location (city, state, geographic region) during a certain time frame: What's happening in Chicago this weekend? What food festivals are happening in Georgia in the next 3 months? What beer and wine festivals are happening in Washington and Oregon in July and August? What film festivals are happening in the United States this year? Today, people have to use multiple sites to find events that are happening. Today, a person would have to use multiple sites, one for each type of activity, and possibly one for each type of activity at a particular location, to ascertain what events were happening in a particular location at a certain time.
There is an issue of knowing what is along one's route when traveling using the Internet today. A person can search for places and activities of interest for a specific location, but there isn't an easy way for a person to find places and activities of interest for multiple locations along a route without performing multiple searches. When a person is going from Point A to Point B, what is along the way that they might find interesting or worthwhile, be it parks (city, state, national), museums, restaurants, hotels, gardens, shopping districts/malls, etc.?
There is an issue of knowing which of a person's friends are nearby using the Internet today. There isn't a single site where a person can search to find which of their friends are nearby.
There is an issue of enabling advertisers to bid on displaying their advertisements to people through an auction process based on people's profiles today. There isn't an auction site that allows advertisers to bid on showing their advertisements to people based on people's profiles. Today, advertisers are able to bid on keywords a person may type, such as “hotels in New York City” or “cold medicine”, in order to display their advertisements, but there isn't a way for advertisers to bid to display their advertisements to people who meet their target profile, and that profile may be based on such factors as age, gender, location, and activity history.